Reading from the beginning

by Nancy L. DeClaissé-Walford

This study of the Hebrew Psalter approaches the text as a story within a canonical context. I began with the question, "Why these 150 psalms and why in this order?" and found answers in the hermeneutical underpinnings -- the footprints -- of the text's shaping community. The community shaped the text into its present form because within that form, and not some other, it found answers to basic existential questions, such as "Who are we?" and "What are we to do in our present circumstances?" The canonical Psalter attained its final shape in the postexilic period of ancient Israel's history, and its story is the product of the exigencies of postexilic life. In order to fully understand the Psalter, we must understand something about the life circumstances of the shaping community. - Preface.